Agreed. On my gentoo systems, I just compile emcs without X support. Makes life easy. Also, one critical skill when using emacs is learning to modify the .emacs.el file as time goes on. Over the years, the little things I accumulated in this file make using emacs a much more pleasant experience.
Rather than use .emacs, use .emacs.d/init.el. Put any extra modes or Emacs apps there, too. Then throw your whole .emacs.d under version control. Finally, stick it on http://bitbucket.org/ or similar. Now you can easily lug your whole Emacs configuration around.
